Destruction
by SweetDeamon
Summary: In which Remus self destructs and Tonks is shattered by the explosion... One shot. RLNT.


_Note: Having stayed up to silly o'clock upon discovering Remus' full biography was up on Pottermore, (well...I got quite a bit of that wrong now, didn't I? :-O ) I've now been assaulted by plot bunnies...this is the result! _

**Destruction**

She missed him when he wasn't there. Dreadfully. It made her heart sink in her chest and she'd always feel like sighing. But somebody would always comment on his whereabouts, somebody had always heard word from him.

Somebody who wasn't her.

And they'd announce he was well, or as well as could be expected, tell everyone he was safe despite his absence and she'd feel relieved and be able to concentrate on the rest of the meeting.

Her heart leapt in her chest when he was there. And yet meetings with him sat around the table with her were far worse than those without him, that was for sure. Every time she set eyes upon him she'd think he looked a little thinner, a little greyer, a little more worn, and she'd never concentrate on what else was going on because she'd simply despair. And she swore she died a little every time when, without fail, should a particularly dangerous or risky mission be proposed, he would instantly volunteer himself for the job. Sometimes it only took a mere mention, sometimes he didn't seem to care about the details, he'd sit bolt upright in his chair and announce: I'll do it. She was beginning to think he had some sort of death wish. It had been this way for months now, ever since she'd finally snapped and told him how she felt about him. She knew he felt the same, she'd have to be a fool not to see it, but he was insisting playing the fool and pretending to be blind.

Sometimes she tried not to look at him at all. He'd caught her staring a few weeks back and, upon meeting her gaze for the briefest of moments, he'd promptly interrupted Moody mid-rant to volunteer yet again. The same thing had happened last week. She was afraid to be caught looking now, her gaze upon him seemed to drive him to ever increasingly extremes. But she couldn't not look. She couldn't just not look at all...

He came back injured sometimes, took no care to wait for a full recovery before throwing himself into danger again. She'd tried to volunteer in his place last week, but he'd grown instantly possessive over his self-destructive little agenda and the others had claimed they needed her elsewhere. She'd tried to joke and say he was being greedy, having all the fun himself, but nobody had taken the hint. It was beginning to frustrate her that the rest of the Order seemed perfectly happy to facilitate his downward spiral. She'd felt a little watery eyed to watch him leave and suspected that if he made it out alive to appear at next week's meeting the last shreds of her composure might very well crack at the mere sight of him.

As it was, she managed to keep her eyes fixed upon the table when he walked in and only glanced up to chance a look when Dumbledore called the meeting to order.

He looked like death. Bruised, ragged, biting pensively upon a swollen lip as he squinted at the piece of parchment in front of him, eyes darting back and forth as he examined the evening's agenda. Snatching up her own copy from the scrubbed wooden table in front of her, she too began to scan down the page, searching for anything particularly damning that he might turn his hand to this time round...

At the mention halfway down the page of scouting out the grounds of the old Lestrange mansion which, she recalled, was rumoured to harbour all manner of dark and viscous sentries, she felt her heart shrivel in her chest.

She wouldn't stand for it, she decided, the parchment half crumpling in her grasp as she clenched her fist around it. She simply wouldn't stand for it, she'd have to stop him, have to do something...

She'd volunteer before the issue was even raised, she'd fling herself into a mission like hat full-heartedly.

See how he liked it!

She was just drawing breath speak, hand half-raised into the air to interrupt Dumbledore's cheery assurance that, despite his absence, he had heard from Severus Snape just yesterday and all was perfectly well with him, when across the table she was beaten to it.

"Albus?"

She very nearly bit through her tongue in an attempt to stifle a shriek of frustration.

As Dumbledore paused mid-sentence, bright eyes turning to look questioningly over at the speaker, she failed to resist the urge to bury her face in her hands.

"Remus?"

He didn't seem to notice her instant distress. Or if he did it didn't seem to bother him.

"This...business with the Lestrange place..."

"Oh yes," Dumbledore said, reaching to adjust the spectacles upon his long, crooked nose. "Yes, we'll get to that soon enough..."

"I'd like to volunteer." Remus announced, and the rest of the Order failed to look at all surprised.

She felt furious with every single one of them.

"Ah, I see..." Dumbledore said, and as she felt tears begin to gather in her eyes, a sob of frustration rising in her throat, she let her hands fall back to the table with a slap that made Hestia Jones beside her jump.

"I want to do it!" she found herself insisting somewhat hysterically to the room at large, reaching to swipe a furious hand across her eyes as the entire Order turned to stare in surprise at her tear stained outburst. "I...I can go..."

Opposite her, Moody gave a snort of disapproval.

"Don't be ridiculous, Nymphadora!" he snapped, "Look at the state of you, for Merlin's sake!"

"Then you do it!" she found herself demanding, rising abruptly to her feet so that she could more easily glower at him from across the table. "Why don't...why don't you go and do it then, if...if you're so bloody brilliant?!"

"Calm down, lass..." the grizzled old Auror suggested, softening a little at her abrupt distress, and she felt she'd quite lost control of herself as she found herself demanding:

"Somebody, for Merlin's sake! Why can't somebody else just...just volunteer?! For a change! For...for once! For once, why can't somebody other than...than Remus bloody volunteer first to go and...and attempt to die for the cause?!"

"Dying isn't the objective of the exercise, I can assure you, Nymphadora." Dumbledore informed her calmly, and she felt a sudden mad urge to laugh at him. "And as it is, we shall be requiring a couple more volunteers to help Remus out...any takers?"

The number of hands being raised was somewhat greater than normal, a few people shot her distinctly meaningful looks but as she sunk back down into her chair she wasn't quite sure she cared. She felt only marginally calmer when Bill and Emmeline had been selected...

Lookouts.

Bill and Emmeline were merely lookouts, keeping to the edge of the property, watching Remus' back.

Upon hearing this bit of news some five minutes later, she tried her best to remain calm, not to lose her temper again, not to say anything to upset everybody. But as the meeting wore on she found she could do nothing but stare helplessly and despairingly across the room at Remus, who did not so much as glance at her once.

She didn't notice she was crying again until Dumbledore paused, about to sit down beside her as Moody stood up to give a report.

"Could I perhaps fetch you a glass of water?" the Headmaster asked her kindly, expression deeply sympathetic, and she stared up at him for a long moment with bleary eyes.

_You could put your foot down_, she thought silently as he turned to summon a glass from over by the sink without waiting for an answer. _You could put a stop to it...stop the madness._

Because it was madness, what Remus was doing. It was utter madness and it frightened her half to death to watch him being so reckless. His total disregard for his own safety was keeping her awake at night. And quite frankly it hurt. It hurt terribly.

It hurt to think he'd rather self-destruct than admit to loving her.

It was going to destroy her too, she was sure of it. It already was, it was unbearable, it was all completely unbearable, the worry, the separation, the total lack of reason...

"We all have our rough days, you know." Dumbledore whispered as he set the glass of water down in front of her and as he sat down she tried her best to offer him a grateful smile but couldn't entirely manage it.

She remained calm for the following hour, her eyes stayed watery but she managed to sit up straight and at least pretend to listen to what Moody had to say about his recent exploits in rural Wales. But all too soon the meeting was over, people were filing out of the door and Bill and Emmeline were arranging to meet Remus some mile from the Lestrange house later that evening.

She watched him bid everyone farewell and disappear out of the door and up the steps towards the hallway.

She found herself running after him.

She caught him halfway to the door and before she could stop herself she found herself pleading:

"Don't go!"

Remus paused, stock still for a long moment before turning reluctantly round to look at her.

She was stood atop the basement stairs, jaw clenched in a futile attempt to stop the tears trickling down her heart-shaped face, hugging her arms around herself as she stared at him imploringly.

"Please don't." she said, eyes growing wide in desperation, and he swallowed a lump in his throat and looked as if he might say something.

Apparently he thought better of it, turning his back on her to stride towards the door.

"Why are you doing this?!" she cried, half-running down the hallway after him, and as he reached to pull the door open he glanced round to remind her:

"There's a war on, Tonks."

"No shit!" she exclaimed, coming to a skidding halt behind him so that she could reach to slam a hand against the door, blocking his escape.

He fidgeted then, trapped in a corner with precious space between them and she stared up at him for a long moment before confessing:

"I'm frightened."

"Everybody's frightened..."

"Everybody except for you, Remus! You don't give a toss!"

He didn't say anything, then. It made her feel a little light headed that he didn't seem bothered enough to even lie.

"You've got to just...just stop all of this..."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a bloody mess, look at you!"

"That's war for you, I suppose..."

"Stop blaming the bloody war!" she shrieked, reaching to grasp hold of the front of his robes, giving him a frustrated shake. "For the love of Merlin, we both know that's got nothing to do with it!"

He looked deeply embarrassed, then, but she refused to back off.

"Look," she said, grip upon him tightening as she stared desperately up at him. "Just...just once...after tonight, next time Dumbledore comes up with some...some utterly mental and...and suicidal plan for something...just once, Remus, don't say anything! Don't volunteer! Just once! That's...that's all I'm asking! Just once let me...let me go home and...and sleep soundly in my bed at night! Is...is that really so much to ask?! You're making me ill, I swear it, I can't bloody stand it any longer! I can't stand to...to sit back and watch you just...just try and throw your life away over and over again! It hurts me! It's the most painful thing in the world, Remus, it really is!"

Remus reached to grasp hold of the door handle.

"I'm going to be late..." he said, and at his point blank refusal to even answer her, she promptly collapsed forward, burying her face in his chest with a frustrated sob.

She couldn't have helped it if she had tried, she knew that much, she was simply broken, she simply couldn't carry on the way things were...

...and for the love of Merlin, if he didn't stop tensing so horribly as if she were poisonous, if he didn't hurry up and throw his arms around her she was going to fall. On her knees. On the floor. In a heap. And she swore she'd never get up again.

She could feel herself slipping but he didn't move a muscle.

"Tonks...please..." he mumbled, sounding utterly humiliated by the whole situation, but it made no difference. She sobbed and shook and swayed upon her feet until she could feel her knees buckling under the weight of emotion. And she couldn't catch herself, she simply couldn't as she felt her grip upon him slackening. The world seemed fuzzy as she sank towards the floor...

She had sunk so low that when she finally felt his arms being thrown around her, restarting her heart thumping in her chest, he missed her middle entirely and caught her underarms instead.

Numbly, she felt herself being lifted upwards, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he tried to set her back upon her feet, only to find her legs appeared to have turned to jelly, forcing him to stand there, hugging her to him to keep her from the floor.

She buried her face in the front of his robes, gasping in deep lungfuls of air in an attempt to calm herself. He smelled faintly of soap and wood smoke from sitting close to the kitchen fire and if she shifted her head to the side she could hear his heartbeat drumming against her ear.

"It's going to be alright." she heard him whisper, and she drew back just enough so that she could look up at his face. A dark bruise had blossomed upon his jaw and his lip looked twice as swollen from this angle. His hair, as it seemed to always been these days, was in ruffled disarray and his gaze upon her was distinctly solemn.

"Promise you'll sit the next one out." she said with a sniff, dark eyes piercing as she stared almost challengingly up at him. "For me, Remus. Just promise."

He seemed to stare down at her for an absolute age, lips pressed firmly together in consideration before his brow crinkled in distinct disapproval of himself when he whispered:

"Alright. I promise. For you."

For a split second she was simply stunned.

She hadn't really expected him to agree at all, indeed her expectations had been...well...entirely non existent, if truth be told.  
Shocked victory made her instantly heady and before she could quite stop herself she had flung her arms around his neck, planting her feet firmly upon the floor so that she could rise up upon tiptoes and kiss him.

And for a moment she was elated when he kissed her back, their lips crushed together for a long, triumphant moment, before his hands dropped to his sides and he drew up from her. As she consented to disentangling her arms from around him, he reached to shove his hands deep into his pockets, regarding her despairingly for a long moment.

Then, without a word of farewell, he stepped past her and pulled the door open, and as he disappeared out into the night he sighed heavily, stopping her heart dead again when she caught him mumble furiously to himself:  
"Merlin help me, if I don't die tonight..."

**Finish.**


End file.
